Thread by @danbuckley77

Frank Lampard's Coventry City vs Stoke City (3-2) | Tactical Analysis (8/03/2025)
- All Action FBs
- Grimes as a "Half Back"
- Potential weaknesses of the two
- Positional rotations on the left/right side.
THREAD:

Since joining in November, Frank Lampard currently has an impressive 62% win rate at Coventry, equating to 13 wins and 3 draws in 21 games. With his side sitting 5th in the table and on a 4 game win streak (before this game), I decided to watch his side against Stoke City.

When OOP in the oppositions half, Eccles moves alongside Simms to create the 2 up top and 4-4-2. In their own half however, he usually falls back into the midfield line and it now looks like a flat 5 in midfield with Simms as the lone striker.

From goalkicks, Lampard opts for a 4-3-3 instead of a double pivot in front of the defence.

In possession, his sides' shape is a 3-2-5 but there is a lot of rotations on the left and right side. For the most part, the 6 (Grimes) will be the one to move into the defensive line, however the FBs/Winger/Midfielders look to rotate with each other disrupt the oppositions structure.

In the image above, it's the FBs who are the wide players, Wingers centrally and the other 2 midfielders remaining in their position and forming the double pivot. Another image showing the same idea from Lampard:

As I mentioned earlier, you would see Lampard's players interchanging positions and Dasilva(LB) + Ewijk's(RB) movements highlighted this. Eccles moves out wide, which is the indication for Dasilva to invert into midfield and Mason-Clark to move centrally too. The same structure but different personnel taking up the areas. Really nice.

An example on the right hand side. Usually it's Grimes in the middle of the 2 CBs but Torp is already in that role so Grimes stays in midfield and Dasilva inverting creates the double pivot because Mason-Clark/Eccles are already occupying the zones on the left side. RW central = RB wide.

If the 2 "8s" in midfield remained in their position, we would see both FBs also run into the half spaces if the Wingers were holding the width. Adds unpredictability with how fluid Coventry are.

If both midfielders (Eccles and Torp) were more advanced, the FBs would tuck inside when the team was camped in the oppositions half, usually with Grimes who would step back into midfield. Good rest defence to deal with potential counter attacks.

One drawback of the FBs bombing on when attacking is the space it leaves for Wingers. It also leaves a CB defending wide areas, which they may not be comfortable with, against an attacker. Stoke were able to create opportunities like this but were unable to capitalise on them.

Coventry in a 3v2 with a attacker running at a CB. Something to look out for with Lampard's side.

With Grimes acting as a third CB, it can leave situations like this where there is a big gap between the lines if he's slow to step up. Eccles/Torp contest for the ball, it goes over them and the Stoke City player has bundles of space as Grimes was on the same line as the defence.

I haven't seen much of Lampard's Coventry but I did like most of what I saw, especially how positionally fluid they were and how he uses his FBs. They did turnover the ball a few times through poor passes, running into opposition players but I'd put that down to personnel. Do need to see some more against tougher opposition and still have some questions over:

- Quality of press
- Solutions in buildup/deep buildup
- Compactness without the ball

Thanks for reading, feedback is appreciated.